By Jim Gilles
Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 7/12/22 – Featured at Outfest 2022 on Saturday, July 16, at 1:00 PM at the Harmony Gold Theatre in Hollywood is Adrián Silvestre’s My Emptiness and I (Mi Vacio y Yo), an insightful and moving account of a young trans woman who has much to learn as she attempts to re-enter the dating world with men. Adrián Silvestre has partnered with co-writer and lead actress Raphaëlle Perez to create a colorful, layered portrait of a young woman dealing with transitioning to female and having to make difficult decisions about her body and her self-image. I highly recommend this film because the character of Raphaëlle is truly inspiring. The film takes its title “My Emptiness and I” from a poem that Raphaëlle recites at a gathering of like-minded people in the course of the story.
Perez plays Raphi, a low-level office worker at an internet call center in Barcelona and she grew up in Paris, France, with her parents, to whom she remains close. When Raphi is diagnosed with gender dysphoria by a psychologist at a hospital clinic in Barcelona, her story becomes a deeply humane exploration of the choices one trans woman makes as she learns to re-enter the dating world, demand more from her sex life, and come into her own as a gifted writer and performer. If you cannot see the film at the Harmony Gold on July 16, consider watching it online with Outfest’s virtual streaming beginning on July 19, at 8:00 PM. Go to: https://www.outfestla.org/films-and-events.
Although the center of the film and the camera are almost always on Raphaëlle, we do encounter a support group of multigenerational trans women who were featured in Silvestre’s previous documentary film Sediments (2021), that screened last year at Outfest, featuring Alicia de Benito, Lena Brasas, Cristina Millán and Tina Recio. What is so impressive about the first part of the film is Raphaëlle’s lack of knowledge about herself and why she acts and dresses as a woman without a deeper understanding. Raphi is a young, androgynous and somewhat naïve person. She writes poems and dreams of falling in love with a Prince Charming. But in reality, things aren’t like that. When asked by the psychologist if Raphi sees himself as a boy or girl, he answers “a boy.” When she asks if he feels like a boy or or girl? All he can answer is “I like feminine clothes. After the diagnosis of “gender dysphoria,” Raphi calls his father in France to tell him that she thinks “he’s a girl in a boy’s body.”
Raphi struggles at times with embarrassing dates, as men soon realize that sexually she still has male sexual organs. During this confusing, yet valuable period, she begins her transition, as well as in her everyday life. She talks candidly with colleagues at work, queer friends, and the men she meets through apps. In spite of all the advice she receives, it turns out that it is mostly time and experience that will help her embrace her place in the world. Raphi begins hormone treatments but remains uncertain about sexual reassignment surgery. The psychologist warns her: “If you continued to have a male sexual organ, you will be fetishized by most men you meet.” The reality for her is that such surgery in a public hospital requires holding out a few years on a waiting list. Ralphi is not convinced that she really needs a vagina to feel more like a woman. In this sense, she adopts a position that is not even understood by the trans community.
It is an interesting reflection on the other types of assumed truths that have been established in recent years, as if the physical were the only representation of the psychological. That the protagonist’s main encounters with other men take place through social networks is not only a reflection of today’s society, but also the representation of the superficial as the main claim. In this game of appearances, one of his dates confronts him violently when she recognizes him as a transsexual, but there is also non-physical violence when another of his dates, with whom he seems to have established a connection beyond the purely physical, disappears without appearing. give explanations.
Raphi begins the difficult journey of her transition with the progressive realization of her change from male to female. According to director Adrián Silvestre, becoming a woman is a “physical change, not identity, because a woman already feels and is. In the midst of discussion and hard controversy between two sectors of feminism over the Trans Law [in Spain], this film arrives to make us reflect with honesty and respect. While outside of that ideological struggle we are witnessing a certain social rejection by some people who consider these people to be geeks or exhibitionists. To remove myths and erroneous ideas, My Emptiness has been created and I have helped to normalize by accepting their difference.”
The character of Raphaëlle does charm us and we feel connected to her bubbly energy and her determination to become the person she wants to be. In the third act of the film, Raphaëlle runs into several men who are more understanding and supportive. One is a theater director who asks Raphaëlle if she is willing to star in a play that he is staging about a young trans woman finding herself. At first, she is reluctant to do this because it feels too close to her own struggle, but she finds the strength to do it anyway. We see how Raphaëlle has grown as a person and how she has come to love and appreciate herself.